


drown with these perfect lines

by xtwilightzx (blackidyll)



Series: Two Sides of the Same Coin [1]
Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Coda, M/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:57:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3831226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackidyll/pseuds/xtwilightzx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't see it, but... those few weeks were very hard for me." </p><p>For Joshua, it's the days after that are the most difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drown with these perfect lines

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is written from Joshua’s point of view, and serves as a companion fic to [_a revelation in the light of day_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3864367), which is written from Neku's point of view. You can read the fics in any order, but I wrote _perfect lines_ first, so I’ve placed it first in the series. 
> 
> This fic mentions instances of death and suicide in passing; nothing graphic (Joshua is pretty blithe about it all, if you consider how easily he "recruited" Neku into the Game), but they're there.
> 
> The title of this fic comes from Barcelona’s “[It’s About Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZyGdXSCe6U).”

It’s different, experiencing the Game from the inside. It’s been years since Joshua has taken another form other than his glowing Composer one, and it’s interesting to see the world from amongst the masses and it’s _highly_ satisfying to click through his phone and rain down cars and vending machines from the sky.

As conspicuous as throwing impossible objects around is, it’s still not as suspicious as carrying a gun around and isn’t it strange, the way human minds work. Neku stares at the SUV as it fades away into Noise space, a frown furrowing his brows, but he doesn’t look at all startled or fearful—not like the first time they met.

Joshua raises his phone and snaps a photo before stepping out into the open, and that’s another difference – no frequency changes to play with, no convenient exits to take.

Joshua always loved playing with handicaps.   

“Howdy,” he says, and adds in a jaunty little wave when Neku finally catches sight of him, his proxy’s thoughts jumbling together into a frantic mess. Joshua catches a snatch of _who the hell—_ and smirks, delighted at how easily he can ruffle his proxy’s nonexistent feathers.

Neku is good with improvisation, however, and he’s a fast-thinker, outwardly betraying none of the scathing remarks that cross his mind. It takes Joshua an enjoyable five minutes to bait Neku into scanning the area and hence Joshua himself, triggering the memory of Udagawa.

It’s enough to set Neku’s mind into motion, chasing that mystery, and Joshua backs out of his proxy’s thoughts, at least for the moment. He has seven days to live as a Player and it should be easy enough to play the smirking, all-knowing partner. It also helps that in his down-tuned form, forcibly repressing his powers, Joshua can’t quite hear all the ugly, off-key notes and discordance in Shibuya’s Music, tainted by the city’s people.

Neku’s Music, however, rings loud and clear. Already the strain is audible there, the softest whine creeping in, and the Music is still chaotic from the loss of his memories, Neku barely having time to reconcile his past with his experiences of the last week. Joshua likes Neku’s Music, however, and in battle he anchors himself to it instead of reaching out for Shibuya, the pact thrumming between them.

Neku is nothing like Shibuya, but with their Music combined Joshua knows their fusions will be spectacular indeed.

“That was a good battle, wasn’t it?” Joshua says brightly, watching Neku hunker down further under his headphones. The 104 is ahead of them, and really, Joshua hasn’t had this much fun in a long time.

 _Just seven days,_ Neku’s thoughts skim across Joshua’s mind, bleeding through the pact.

Joshua smiles.

“Lead the way, partner.”

\---

It never occurs to his latest Conductor to feel lonely, as a human or a Reaper. Behind those ever-present sunglasses his eyes shine with the fever of the obsessed and the rigid lines of his Soul are brittle with his love. And oh, how he loves – with all the hunger of one who has lost a love and so willingly pours his entire being to filling a hole with what he'd been missing. It calls to something in Joshua, moves him enough that he acknowledges Kitaniji Megumi, brilliant musician and Shibuya's most devoted citizen.  

Joshua doesn’t admire it, however; he isn’t impressed. He simply understands unwavering devotion - he's far past gone on Shibuya himself, after all. But Joshua prides himself on his vision, his ability to look at the greater picture. He is ineffably the Composer, but he is also the surgeon that drains lesions and cauterizes wounds. He breaks bones once again so they'll set cleanly, and strong.

 _I'll only ever destroy you for your own sake,_ he tells his beautiful, beautiful city, and it's the loveliest, most truthful confession he has and ever will make.

\---

Neku's final entry fee is simple, confusing and very characteristically him, and Joshua _does not know what to do with it_.

Neku’s face had been hilarious, his proxy so stunned and panicked that he hadn’t noticed the loss, and Joshua had chuckled, pleased. He thought it would be the last push Neku needed to fully participate in their final Game, that without friendship binding them Neku would be free to take the shot, and when his proxy lifted the gun with the pain of betrayal in his eyes Joshua had simply smiled and lifted his weapon in turn.

And then the tears dropped, and the hands holding the gun dropped, and in that moment of unguardedness Joshua took the shot, an incredulous laugh escaping him.

Now he stands there with the lightning-charged warmth of his and Neku’s friendship still lingering in the air around them, and watches his proxy die.

Sanae lands behind him, and Joshua doesn’t move. Neku’s eyes finally fall shut, the Soul in his still defiant Music depleting rapidly, and Joshua doesn’t move. He’s won the Games against the Conductor and his proxy, and he’s free to do whatever he pleases with both Shibuya and this inconceivable friendship because entry fees for the ones who lose the Game are non-refundable, and he just—doesn’t do anything.

Feathers move soundlessly behind him. Sanae’s wings are still invisible but they’re mantled, spread out wide and ready. Joshua feels them shift through the Music, testing, everything frozen save for the two entities powerful enough to step beyond time, and even then Sanae can’t do a thing until Joshua finishes the Game, collecting the fees that are his due.

Neku, annoyingly, continues lying there instead of becoming mere Soul. Shibuya is caught in a single, never-ending note, waiting, waiting.

“Joshua,” Sanae says, very, very softly, and it’s clear from his tone of voice that the Angel really means _Composer_.  

He up-tunes instantly, hitting the highest frequency he can reach without leaving Shibuya. He wraps up the echoes of the Players and Reapers and the normal Noise population in Shibuya’s Music, the beautiful reality of her, setting them safely to one side, and then he destroys everything else—the Taboo Noise and the Red Pins and the unnaturalness of the past three weeks, although he cannot touch the ripple effects they’ve already caused. Shibuya, when he calls her back out, chirps curiously at him and Joshua isn’t stupid enough to ignore what’s blatantly in his face, the pure rightness of her all-encompassing Song.

He’s also not in the mood for it, and jumps back down to the Room of Reckoning, Shibuya falling back slightly when he enters his own territory, one of the few spaces in the city that is entirely his and not hers.

Neku, incredibly, is still lying there, and Sanae is not staring at him, although the grin says it all.

“Josh—” he begins, and Joshua pointedly ignores him as he picks up his proxy, making yet another jump, towards the RG this time.

This friendship of theirs is just as easily severed with Neku alive as he is erased, after all.

— _be careful_ , Sanae’s voice echoes through his mind, undeterred by things like time or distance. The impression the Producer leaves is one of cheerful caution, the type of teasing warning a well-meaning friend might give before – say – a big date.

Joshua is not really human anymore, so he doesn’t give in to his more humanistic instincts to slam mental doors shut on Sanae. He points Shibuya in the Producer’s direction instead – if Joshua is correct about even just half the things Sanae has done in Shibuya’s name and in her defense, then they’re going to need a lot of new wall tags – and the Angel lets himself be distracted, diverting Shibuya’s attention enough to lend the illusion of privacy.

It’s not what Joshua intended, but he’ll take it. 

Joshua is pulled towards his younger form as he hovers at the barrier between UG and RG, and he unfurls his wings this time, worn out enough that he needs the power boost.

Reincarnating the Bito siblings and Misaki is no simple task, and Joshua smiles wryly at his proxy. Crackling energy reverberates between his wings as he concentrates, and the three-way pact sparks to life – four, if he counts Rhyme – with Joshua as its power source and Neku its focal point. It is laughably easy to return Neku’s friends to life after that, to rewrite the timeline of city to accommodate their return; resurrecting Neku, on top of that, is just a matter of dropping him across the barrier into the Realground Scramble Crossing.

If the drama from the final Game hadn’t catch the Angels’ attentions, then this improbable feat, using the links of the partner pact to bring all of them back to life, certainly will.

Joshua folds his wings into his back, and if they ache he tells himself it’s just the unfamiliarity of using so much energy in one go.

He does not stay to watch Neku awaken.

\---

He knows death too well.

There are two hundred and six bones in the human body. It hurts tremendously to break any of them, and there is a lot of collateral damage they can cause in the process. Heart attacks from escaped bone marrow in the bloodstream, punctured lungs, shock and severe blood loss from a broken femur. The vulnerable spine. Pressure in the skull.

The average human body holds around five liters of blood, and losing a third of that is enough to cause exsanguination.

Humans spend a long time arguing the legalities of death – its definition, the signs of it, but Joshua takes the long view. Their Soul, their Music is still there, isn’t it? Death the human way is just a change of scenes.

Erasure is far more complete.

Still, he dislikes the messes bodies make. Salt-laced tears, the sour tang of sweat, the acidic bitterness of bile, of _fear_. His one concession to the Players is to take the final moment of death. He can't do anything about them drowning in their own blood or the excruciating pain of failing organs, but at least they won't remember succumbing to that final release, even if they know logically that they did.

In return, he takes a single entry fee from each Player.

\---

There is power in numbers and beauty in the natural laws that operate hand-in-hand with the explicit rules Joshua sets for the UG. Seven days is tradition and so seven days is the grace period they get; Joshua takes to the roof of the 104 because the high ground is strategic and the view he gets there is incomparable.

“So, I can’t say I’m not happy about your change of heart, but this whole ‘pining on a rooftop’ business doesn’t suit you, J.”

Unfortunately, cats – or at least, this CAT – like high, strategic spaces as well.

“They’ve changed Shibuya,” he finally says, a neutral enough topic. There are three Songs in the cacophony of voices surrounding the statue of Hachiko that sing out in a slightly different chord, a tag marking them as former inhabitants of the UG, and Joshua barely even has to think in their direction for Sanae to follow his train of thought, to turn his attention to the three Players Joshua brought back to life.  

“The potential was always there. In this city, we had all the ingredients needed to create the perfect Underground.” Sanae sounds absolutely thrilled, like someone’s offered him sole rights to the richest coffee bean plant in the country. “And a rather drastic catalyst to push things into motion, of course.”

“I can’t tell if you’re referring to me or to yourself,” Joshua says, his voice bland. Sanae slants him a look, and Joshua really doesn’t care that his Producer had tried to dispose of him; all is fair in love and war – especially war – and they’ve broken enough rules between them that they’ve more or less cancelled out each other’s transgressions, a zero sum game.

Sanae slouches forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “You were always one of the best elements of this city, J,” he says, and it’s a frank statement; no teasing, no pretenses. “Necessary change never comes easily.”

Joshua prefers direct confrontation, but they’ve danced around enough conversations over the years, he and his Producer, that changing the subject does not feel like a retreat.

“She’s doing well, for someone who lost the Game,” he says instead. Two winners of the Game and one who lost; Bito Rhyme’s Music, however, is remarkably harmonious for having once been in Noise key.

“Rhyme doesn’t have her former dreams, but it doesn’t mean she can’t find new ones. She’s surrounded herself with the best people to support her. She’ll be fine.” The air around Sanae distorts slightly; he’s dipping into the higher frequencies to read her potential, and he nods approvingly at what he finds there. Joshua could take a look himself, but it’s all there in the girl’s cheerful laughter, heartfelt and sincere all the way down into her Music despite the addition of memories no RG dweller should retain.

He took a gamble with that – memories are potent things – but then again, where this group of former Players is concerned Joshua has long crossed the line of neutrality when he returned all of them to life. One more contravention hardly makes a difference.

“And as for bonds that have been deliberately broken,” Sanae continues, “well, there’s nothing stopping you from forging something stronger in its place.”

Of course his Producer would think that.

“You’re not subtle at all, Sanae.”

“Just taking a page out of someone’s book, that’s all.”

It’s starting to grate that Sanae doesn’t push the issue, that he simply drops truths like scattered raindrops while they both pretend that they aren’t watching Neku making his way to the Statue of Hachiko or that they didn’t hear Neku’s oddly heartfelt soliloquy to Joshua. As the Composer, Joshua perceives everything but chooses what he listens to, but apparently his proxy has a direct line to him; Neku’s voice had rang clear across the general chatter of Shibuya, and try as he might Joshua couldn’t tune him out.

If he’s honest with himself, he hadn’t tried very hard. 

Joshua has always liked Neku’s Music, since the first moment he heard it – really _listened_ to it – in front of the Udagawa murals, the melody both compelling and intriguing because of and not despite the dissonance within it. If Joshua is a little less cynical, he might call it inevitability that he picked this boy out of all of Shibuya to act as his proxy.

And the one time that someone chose him, _him_ , Joshua of all creatures, Joshua doesn't get to keep him.

It's been a very long time since Joshua’s considered suicide - it doesn’t work on him because he doesn't die, and so was rather pointless - but he wonders if this is what it felt like, the first time. Whether the bullet blasting a hole through his skull had felt as shocking, the realization of _this is it, it’s the end but it’s also the beginning, it_ has _to be_ and knowing how very ironic it is to think of Sakuraba Neku as another bullet that turned Joshua’s life on its end.

“You know,” Sanae says quietly, “this mess is gonna have repercussions upstairs. But hey, at least things are back to normal, right?”

Joshua’s smile, hidden behind the glow of his power, is sardonic. _Normal_ is the last word he would use to describe his city. Shibuya’s Music sounds remixed, a close approximation of what he composed but with all her citizens chiming in. His Shibuya, sweet and demure with an edge of wildness under it all, and no longer quite his. But Shibuya was never his, was it? He'd confused the lines of ownership completely. There is one Shibuya and several more Composers before him – Joshua knows that.

Sanae stares down at the little troupe in such a pointed way indicates all his other senses are trained on Joshua. “You seem down! Hey, it’s their world. They get to decide what to do with it. Just—”

The higher planes beckon them, and Joshua forces the power through without drawing his wings, folding the idea of them tightly against his spine and jumping frequencies in a burst of light. Hanekoma is laughing, the low chuckles pizzicato notes plucked on a violin or on the _koto_ , and it’s irritating how much better Joshua is at perceiving things when he’s in his shimmering Composer form.

He’s in trouble, he knows, the moment he Ascends – far away enough from his city that Shibuya is an immutable but dampened vortex of music and beauty at his very core – and so the very first thing he does is cause more.

“Shibuya is mine,” he drawls – humanity has left a few interesting habits behind, it seems, “so do what you like, but keep your sticky wings out of my city and away from my Players.”

By which he means his proxy, because he knows the way Angels poach for their own kind, and even if Neku doesn’t belong to him he still belongs to Shibuya, bright and alive and wrecking whirlwinds of change in his wake.

As Joshua steps forward, drawing all his considerable power around him in a protective nimbus of light, it occurs to him that his proxy is not a bullet, but something more natural, almost accidental – a wingless fall, gravity pulling him as close as a lover, and the final heart-bursting impact at the end.

Well, he supposes Neku won that round, then.

\---

As long as he is tied to Shibuya they can’t do anything as drastic as Erase him – the city _always_ comes first – but there are consequences, of course.

He doesn't remember them, but they're seared into his bones, into the very core of his own Music, the one separate from Shibuya. One day, he'll peel back the layers of skin and muscle and dig through the sheen of his own inhuman power to read the words inscribed there.

But today is not that day.

He also keeps his wings shut, neatly tucked into his Music because they can't clip them that way.

They don't need to see the gap in his left wing either.

\---

Joshua comes back to himself in the Dead God’s Pad.

He remembers dropping directly into the Room of Reckoning, where no one has influence save him alone. He remembers running through the mechanics on instinct, checking the city and consolidating his power over Shibuya even through the blur of censure. He remembers stepping onto cool glass with silent schools of fish trailing his every step and even that he had – oh so ridiculously –  blurred down to his RG form, but he certainly doesn’t remember curling up on the leather couch with his proxy a warm line of contact tucked up against his back.

Joshua’s not usually the one with blanks in his memory.

They’re sitting at right angles to each other, Joshua half slumped against the back of the couch and his head slotted into the groove of Neku’s neck and shoulder. Neku’s shoulder is all bony and it’s uncomfortable and Joshua’s neck aches because he’s stupidly in his RG form, and instead of teleporting away or teleporting Neku away he only stares up at the ceiling and lets the white noise of falling water fill his ears.

Neku shoves an elbow into the small of Joshua’s back and it startles him away enough for Neku to twist, although he doesn’t move away, the two of them sitting braced against each other instead, back to back.

“Finally! Ugh, my arm,” Neku complains, and Joshua mentally reaches out, getting an impression of pins and needles crawling down his arm as blood rushes through the numbed limb. Neku shakes out his hand gingerly, rotating his shoulders twice before settling against Joshua with a sigh. “You’re heavy, Josh.”

Just to be contrary, Joshua lets his body go even more boneless, slumping heavily against Neku’s back until Neku grunts and shoves back, straightening his spine. Joshua slides a bit further until his head is resting against Neku’s shoulder – is this going to be a trend now? – Joshua’s curls ruffling up against Neku’s neck and the tips of his dyed hair.

“Are you alive?” Neku asks warily. “What the hell are you doing over there?”

“Annoying you,” Joshua says, because that’s the truth even if it isn’t the entire truth. “What are _you_ doing?”

“Resisting the urge to choke you.”

“Such honesty. I’d let you, dearest,” Joshua allows his voice to croon, and Neku goes tense against him, shoulders stiffening and his spine rigid. Even without Neku’s body betraying him Joshua has a thrice-fold advantage – he’s clairvoyant, he reads minds, and Neku’s Music has never sounded clearer or more distinct, a familiar beat to Joshua’s perception and entirely too expressive.

Joshua doesn’t need sight to see Neku’s every move in his mind’s eye. 

He trips right along, laying down barbs. “You know, this isn’t the Statue of Hachiko.”

A long pause. Even Neku’s Music has gone quiet, contemplative. “No,” Neku says. “But that was yesterday, so guess what? New location.”

Joshua stares up at the ceiling for a long moment, then opens himself up further to Shibuya’s Music. It’s true; it’s night time now, the day after Neku’s little gathering with his friends. Even Sanae has returned from his own stint to the higher planes, the WildKat Café thrumming with high-frequency energy with the Producer within its confines. The rest of Shibuya is at ease, everything well within control.

And then there’s Neku sitting pressed against his back, with a sketchpad in his lap and a lingering headache, if the way he’s subconsciously kneading at his temple with one knuckle says anything.

“Neku. Move.”

“No.”

Just like that.

Joshua could move him. Joshua could pull both of them up into the UG where any Psych imaginable is at his disposal; he could drop their frequencies even lower than the Realground and leave Neku stranded between planes, unseen and untouched by Reapers and Noise and the living,  invisible even to the dead. He could wipe Neku’s memories or just plain Erase him, because even in his RG form it’s only a matter of time before Joshua’s vibe, his Music – charged with the full power of the city behind him now – does just that anyway.

It’s expediency. If Neku insists on associating with him, Joshua might as well speed to the inevitable end.

“You do realize that your headaches are only going to get worse the longer you stay here.” _with me_ , Joshua doesn’t add, because he doesn’t need to give Neku more ammunition to shoot him with.

“Wow, why didn’t I put that together.” The sarcasm in Neku’s voice could strip paint, although there’s the tiniest little wobble in it that no one except Joshua would notice. “All those times I thought it was Pi-Face, and it turns out it was you all along.”

Joshua smiles, because Neku has finally mastered the art of expressing multiple sentiments with just one statement.

“And just when did you figure it out?” Joshua asks, voice saccharine sweet.

Neku is quiet, and Joshua waits patiently; he doesn’t even eavesdrop. It’ll set the tone for the rest of this conversation, whether Neku chooses to focus on the murder or the blinding headaches.

“Just these last couple of days,” Neku says at last, and Joshua is lying– there must be some stupid part of him that is still listening in somehow because he knows Neku is thinking about the reason why he’s here, the reason why he has chosen to chase Joshua all the way into the Composer’s own territory even though Neku is alive and removed from anything remotely Game related. 

Why doesn’t Neku ever react the way Joshua thinks he will?

Joshua stops time; here in the space that belongs to the Reapers it doesn’t matter that he’s technically in the RG. He leaves Neku’s awareness intact because it isn’t worth the scuffle, Neku now strong enough to resist overt manipulations of his Music – Joshua can’t easily take Neku’s memories now without damaging a lot of other things in the process – and so there’s no way Neku can hide the sudden surge of panic jolting through his Music. Joshua rolls smoothly to the side, hitting the floor and then swinging over to straddle Neku’s thighs, fingers coming up to catch Neku’s chin, forcing eye contact.

There is a surprisingly lack of defiance in Neku’s gaze however, the fear in his Music fading away and the notes settling into a steady rhythm: cautious and expectant.

Joshua’s head tilts to the side despite himself, and then he’s clambering off both Neku and the couch, idly flicking his phone into existence just to give his hands something to hold onto.

Joshua had thought the little speech from the day before was well-intentioned but not desired in actuality – it’s one thing for Neku to invite someone he _inconceivably_ still considers a friend for a meet up, and it’s another thing entirely to invite one’s killer and what is essentially the ruler of the underworld into his normal, living life – but no, Neku means it.

Neku truly trusts him.

Neku, fortunately, also has some sense of preservation left because the phone worries him. It’s something, although Neku should really worry more about the person holding it. Joshua used the phone mostly as a conduit and a filter on what power he channeled during the Game – if he exploded the phone then he’s definitely exceeding the limits of a Player – but he could have easily used just about anything else. The only thing that sets the phone apart from a generic gun or even a simple sprig of sakura wood is the single photo on it, the snapshot Joshua had taken of Neku on their first day as Partners.

It’s appallingly metaphoric, when Joshua looks at it in hindsight. 

Joshua drops his phone to the side – it disappears before hitting the glass floor – and unfreezes time. Neku falls backwards without Joshua there to brace him, limbs flailing frantically, slamming onto the couch with a thump.

It takes a minute for Neku to catch his breath, and Joshua uses the moment of distraction to pick up the sketchbook. It’s filled with pages of pen sketches – how like Neku, to force himself to either put the lines down properly the first time or learn how to modify mistakes on the go – and are reminiscent of CAT’s new wall tags, rendered in a black and white medium.

“Neku.”

Neku’s eyes are wide when he glances up at Joshua.

“Move over,” Joshua tells him, and is gratified when Neku scrambles upright, scooting across the couch to free up a space for Joshua to take a seat.

The lack of headphones has never been more noticeable than at this moment, when Neku shoves a hand through his hair, trying to get rid of some nervous energy. “You’re an ass.”

Joshua sets the sketchbook on his knees. “I call it making a statement.”

There it is, the annoyed little glare Neku can’t keep off his face.

“You started with the grand gestures first, however,” Joshua continues, resting a hand on the sketchbook. Neku’s eyes flick down to it, then back up to Joshua’s face.

“Me?”

Joshua glances pointedly around the Dead God’s Pad. He doesn’t spend much time here; he doesn’t micromanage so it’s more of Megumi’s domain, but—well.

“What?” Neku is looking around warily now, although he tries to make it subtle. “I’ve been here before.”

“Yes,” Joshua agrees, “when you were dead.” He lets his voice go light and amused. “You’re alive now.”  

Quiet again.

“Yeah,” Neku finally says. “One day you’re going to explain why. Here—” He lifts a hand and drops something small on the surface of the sketchpad. “I guess that’s how I got through the doors. I thought there would be a barrier at the Shibuya River too, but...” He shrugs, trying for nonchalant and mostly ending up with awkward instead.  

Joshua stares down at the pin. It’s a Game-pin, there’s no doubt about it, formed of pure potential, the kind generated by the natural rhythms of the UG. The design is an invert of the Player pin, black skull on white, and there’s only one meddling Angelic barista who would risk passing something like this to Neku. But that’s not really the point. The point is—

“It’s a blank.”

“Hmm?”

“There’s no power in this pin.” No wonder he hadn’t noticed it – it’s no more powerful than the button Neku’s first week partner had sewn back onto his pants pocket.

Neku shoots him a look. “Are you sure?”

“Deadly,” Joshua says, and Neku doesn’t flinch, not even when Joshua picks up the pin, flips it into the air with a flick of a finger, a repetitive movement.  

It’s symbolic, the way Sanae embeds codes into his wall tags, and it says much that the Producer chose the same neutral colors as Joshua’s Player pins. It’s a gift to Neku, an acknowledgement of his days in the Underground and a concession to his living status, the pin the explanation Neku needs for why he’s able to enter where no normal Realground inhabitant should be able to go.

It’s definitely a message to Joshua, as is the fact that it’s Neku who carried the pin here.

“Meddlesome, Mr H.,” Joshua murmurs.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s a blank’?” Neku asks. “So it isn’t like a keypin?”

“No.”

The keypins have power that this pin lacks, there’s a barrier Joshua put up himself at the Shibuya River, and apparently the dormant partner pact gives Neku strange little perks despite the fact that he’s back in RG now. Joshua catches the pin on its way down and makes it disappear from Neku’s sight, tucking it into a fold between frequencies. “You needn’t worry, Neku. This place exists in the RG. No reason why you can’t walk right in.”

Neku watches him with narrowed eyes, and then reaches for his sketchbook. He comes up with a fistful of feathers instead. “What—”

Joshua glances down dispassionately and there they are, little curls of down feathers, soft and powerless, scattered like balls of cotton across a field. Sighing, he touches one to dissolve them into particles of light – Neku jerks back as his handful of feathers disappears – and shifts his awareness into the UG for just a second to dispel them there too.

Neku’s hand closes around his wrist with a grip that’s almost bruising.

Joshua nearly stops time again, but it’s clear from Neku’s Music that the move had been entirely instinctive, that on some subconscious level Neku registered the differences in frequencies and had acted to stop Joshua from – he thought – disappearing again.

“Just tidying up, dear,” Joshua says, and Neku startles, dropping Joshua’s hand immediately, curling in on himself in mortification, although he doesn’t pull away. Joshua smiles to himself and finishes clearing up; the down feathers are a side effect of having parts of his power stripped from him but they are dormant, incidental, nothing like the potent energy one of his long flight feathers, deliberately removed from the inner arch of his wing, contains.

“I gave you a feather, once.”

Neku uncurls slightly, eyebrows furrowed. “Did you? I don’t remember.” He pauses. “Then again, memories are pretty unreliable around you.”

Joshua’s smile is sharp and only slightly bitter. “I assure you, you have all your memories, whole and complete. Anything that happens to them from here on is through no conscious effort on my part.”

Neku is quiet for a long while, although his eyes are locked on Joshua. “Okay. Does ‘feather’  mean something else in your super-secret—” he makes a gesture in Joshua’s direction, presumably to encompass everything Joshua represents “—language? 

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t need it.”

“…uh-huh. So why’d you give it to me? Does it block death rays or something? Can I fly with it?”

Joshua rolls his eyes. “No. It gives you a power boost, but _you don’t need it,_ ” he repeats.

This – _his_ – Neku doesn’t need feathers when he already possesses a core of liquid steel strong enough to maintain a pact with the Composer. 

There’s a furrow between Neku’s eyebrows, a look that says he has his mind set on something. “What if I want it? If I’m hanging out with you, I’m going to need every advantage I can get.”

Shibuya continues singing at the back of his mind but Joshua’s own Music goes very still and quiet, all the intricacies of a Composer’s Song playing in pianissimo, leaving only the base melody in acoustic. After a lifetime of seeing things others can’t and an afterlife controlling the rules that make up the UG’s reality, very few things are capable of surprising him anymore.

And then there’s Neku, who is quite determined to be the exception to every damn rule across the frequencies.

“Neku,” Joshua says, and Neku’s head snaps up; Joshua hadn’t meant to, but more than a little of his Composer’s voice is filtering into his words – less audible sound and more sensation. “Why are you here?”

Neku shifts out of his slouch against the couch, sitting upright. His fingers curl slightly – too used to the comforting feel of pins – and he lets out a careful breath. 

“I almost killed Shiki on the second day,” Neku murmurs, his voice pitched low as though he wants to hide from the words. “I would have killed her if Mr. H didn’t stop me, not because her death would have meant something but because I was just scared. She didn’t hold it against me.”

He looks up, and Neku might have mellowed over the past week but the Music doesn’t lie; here is the same boy who was alone and powerless without his partners and who still walked forward to confront the Composer, determined to end everything once and for all.

“You actually did kill me, and you did it knowingly. You played me and everyone else and we never really had a chance once we entered the first two Games, did we? You had that Game with the Conductor, and the rest of us – the Players, the Reapers – we were just. Pawns. Means to an end.’

“But you brought us all back. I don’t know why, but you—fixed things. I want to understand why.”

There’s more, Joshua can hear it, but he keeps his peace with unnatural patience. It’s a side of him Neku isn’t at all familiar with – as a Player, a rogue Composer, Joshua had reveled in the many little foibles humans afford each other – but he’s neither of those now. He’s Shibuya’s Composer, no matter what form he wears, and he has waited much, much longer for less momentous occasions than this.

Neku ducks his head like he wants to look away, but his eyes don’t waver. “And I want to understand because you’re my friend.”

A strange smile pulls at Joshua’s lips. “I thought you couldn’t forgive me. You even mentioned it twice.”

Neku shifts restlessly, but he lifts his chin now, refusing to back down.  

“You’re the one who told me to remember what Mr. H said. ‘Enjoy the moment with all you’ve got.’ Well, I’m giving it my all right now. Look, I’ve had a lot of time to regret all the things I didn’t get to say – or show – when you got hit by Minamimoto’s blast, okay? And then you dumped me back out in the Realground without any warning and it’s been a long week and I’m just really sick of—”

Neku cuts himself off, a look of consternation flicking across his face; he clearly doesn’t expect to get that far without Joshua cutting him off, and Joshua can hear him scrambling to make sense of the scattered thoughts in his head.

Joshua would enjoy the confusion a lot more if he isn’t focusing so intensely on Neku. He’s pretty sure it’s creeping Neku out, his Music wary and watchful under the commotion of his thoughts, so that’s something at least.

“I don’t want to go back to who I was before,” Neku says at last. “Pushing everything away, pretending that I was perfectly happy on my own. So, you know, I rather get it all out, so when you decide to kill me again I’ll have no regrets.”

“That would just negate all that effort I went through to reincarnate you,” Joshua says absentmindedly, because how is this boy even real? How can there exist someone who keeps choosing Joshua – all aspects of him, the partner, the murderer, the Composer – against all logic, against Shibuya, against normalcy?

Given enough time, Neku would probably even forgive him, but that’s all right, because Joshua doesn’t intend to ever apologize. Hindsight is twenty-twenty and the gift of clairvoyance doesn’t make Joshua infallible; Shibuya will always be his first priority, to nurture or to destroy, and put in the same situation, Joshua will always make the same decision. 

But nothing is the same, not his city, who now sings pure and sweet and unpredictable at the back of Joshua’s mind, and not Neku, who changed the world by breaking through all his limitations and those of the people around him.

If Joshua can’t follow in their footsteps, then he’s not fit to be the Composer.

Neku’s exasperation at Joshua’s seemingly flippant statement melts into startlement when Joshua reaches into the null space between frequencies to pull out the pin.

“Don’t move,” he warns Neku, and closes his eyes to concentrate.

The crafting of specific pins is Producer territory, but Joshua has always had excellent Imagination and he’s aiming for something more like the Player Pin, which remains firmly in the Composer’s domain. Staying in his RG form restricts what power he can draw on, and he focuses instead on finesse and detail, crafting an intricate weave of energy and imbuing it into the pin’s design.

It helps to have Neku’s Music right there; there’s nothing else like it anywhere in Shibuya and Joshua listens to it, _listens_ and tunes the pin to Neku and Neku alone.

Neku hasn’t moved an inch when Joshua is finally done, a faint discomfort thrumming through his Music, his muscles tense and aching from holding so still. Time is usually inconsequential when Joshua does something like this; his imagination is near limitless, his execution flawless, and when his mind is made up, he can carry out that will faster than lightning, than erasure. But for the things that matter Joshua is willing to consider, to slow down, to think things through and he had wanted to take his time with this, the pin as much a work of art as it is a tool, a means to an end.

Much like Shibuya. Much like Neku, for that matter, the indomitable human spirit probably the greatest creative mystery in the multiverses.

“Tell me, Neku.” Joshua fingers the pin, the black on white design of it, Joshua’s Reaper skull seal. It’s telling that Megumi chose the same design for his mind-controlling pins; his former Conductor had always been loyal to him, and even in his attempt to conquer Shibuya he did so in Joshua’s name. “Do you want to live?”

Neku shifts in his seat, stubbornly refusing to move much further than that. Joshua can hear half a dozen bitten off retorts going through Neku’s mind, but Neku only says, “Yes.”

“And yet you want to ‘hang out’ with me?”

Neku stares at him, and one of those sniping retorts makes it out of his mouth after all. “You just told me killing me would ‘negate all your work,’ so.” 

Joshua smiles. “Then keep this with you,” he says, and holds out his hand, the pin sitting innocuously in the center of his palm.

It isn’t kind of him to do it like this, without explanations, once again playing at least five moves ahead of Neku and still expecting the boy he had chosen as proxy to keep up. It isn’t in his nature to be kind or to make himself vulnerable, and right now Joshua is willing to be one – only one – or the other.

Neku draws in a breath like he wants to speak but swallows the words back instead, a frown marring his features as he thinks, his eyes uncertain. He looks two seconds away from backing out; surviving to fight another day is a choice most Players end up taking at least once during the course of a Game.   

Joshua knows better – behind Neku’s still present armor of prickliness is an astonishingly sensitive soul, and behind that sensitivity is a core of steel, tempered through the trials of the past three weeks. Neku watches him, and then his hand closes over the pin, fingers warm over Joshua’s skin.

The pin had been dormant in Joshua’s hand but under Neku’s touch it lights right up, a pin whose effects are perpetually activated. Unlike most pins which contain a safeguard that only allows them to be used only in battle in the UG, this one transcends the frequencies. When Joshua tries to read Neku’s mind, he comes up against serene blankness instead.

Oh, he’s a little too good at this. There isn’t even a wall for him to shatter.

He’s not entirely sure that Neku’s capable of perceiving what the pin does, but he does hear the moment Neku’s Music slows in tempo, lighter, quieter notes entering the usually upbeat melody of it.

Well, at least Joshua still has the Music.

Neku’s eyes, when Joshua meets his gaze, are wide, pupils dilated. They’re not fixed on Joshua’s face or on the pin in his hand but hover somewhere over Joshua’s shoulders, and Joshua knows. His wings don’t exist in the RG or else the sharp Reaper bones of them will pierce right through reality, shrouded though they are with Angelic feathers, which means Neku is staring at the shadows of them in the UG.

“You really are missing a feather,” Neku says, very neutrally, and Joshua glances at his left wing, eyes narrowed. “I didn’t think it belonged to you, not like this.”

“No.” Joshua doesn’t manifest his wings often; his Composer form is usually powerful enough to handle anything Shibuya throws at him, and yet here he is – RG form, wings unfurled. How contradictory. Joshua tucks them back into his Music, Neku blinking when they disappear. “You shouldn’t even perceive them as you currently are.”

There’s a look in Neku’s eyes, half-curious and half-wary. “Am I going to be seeing the Game from now on?”

Joshua frowns, just the slightest fold of his mouth. “I should fine-tune that,” he says, reaching for the pin, and Neku ducks away, closing his hands protectively around the pin, although his Music tells Joshua that there was no panic in the movement.

“I’m not going to do anything to the pin,” Joshua says patiently. “I just rather head off any complications that might come from you seeing the UG.” He arches an eyebrow. “You know, righteous fury over the Game, hostile takeover, all that.”

“You saw the UG when you were alive,” Neku points out.

“And that turned out very well for me, didn’t it?” Joshua smiles. “I rather doubt you’d want to go down the same career path, however.”

Neku glances away, fingers flexing restlessly, and then meets Joshua’s eyes squarely. “I’m good.”

“Oh, fine.” His stubborn, stubborn partner, completely and utterly unpredictable despite how steadfast Neku is in his convictions. “It could very well just be me that you’ll see. The pact is a curious thing.”

“The pact,” Neku repeats slowly, like if he said it with enough gravitas he might understand it better. Then he shakes his head, his hair falling over his eyes without the weight of those headphones holding them down, the viscosity of hair gel fading with the day. “So… what does this pin do?”

Joshua actually turns to stare at him, because he can’t read Neku’s mind anymore and the Music doesn’t reveal much this time, more a general indication of mood than anything else.  

“What?” Neku says defensively, even as his posture straightens, and Joshua remembers – Neku is always strongest when he’s given something to figure out, to fight against. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t make a pin just to give me double vision, and I don’t want to accidentally wander somewhere weird again.”

He shoots a wary look towards the end of the room where the entrance to the Trail of the Judged used to be, although Joshua knows Neku can’t actually see it, since Joshua removed it a week ago. Neither he nor Sanae need a door to the Room of Reckoning, and he doesn’t have a Conductor at the moment.

He really should do something about that.

Joshua sinks back into the couch instead. “How’s the head?”

“What?” Neku runs a hand self-consciously through his hair; it isn’t a nervous habit Joshua witnessed during the Game, but the lack of headphones must make Neku twitchier than usual.  

“The headache, Neku,” Joshua says. “If you miss your headphones so much, then you shouldn’t drop them just anywhere.”

He curls his hands into themselves the moment the words leave his mouth. There’s the faint touch of sense memory on Joshua’s hands, the shape and feel of a pair of headphones that echoes with the Producer’s designs and marked all over by Neku’s own Song. The memory is hazy the way Joshua isn’t entirely sure what happened between his taking of his RG form and Neku’s arrival here, and it makes Joshua feel exposed, off-kilter.  

Neku’s stare is neither abrupt nor accusing; his eyes meet Joshua’s steadily and there’s a strange expression on his face, his lips parting slightly as if words are caught on his tongue, on the brink of flight, and Joshua flips himself into the UG, the sudden manifestation of pure power under his fingertips a piercing shriek in his ears. 

Neku flinches, hard, hand clenching instinctively around the pin. Any blast of energy Joshua calls down here would not touch Neku in the RG, and Joshua holds the threat of it, watching his partner’s face for a long minute before he lets the notes dissipate back into Shibuya’s Song, flicking back into the RG. The way Neku’s Music is pounding, fast and frantic, he probably hadn’t even noticed the switch this time around.

“You’re fine,” Joshua says, and for once, does not tease. “Remember, you’re in the RG now.”

Neku draws a shuddering breath. “What was that?”

Joshua watches him steadily. “Me.”

“I know it was you – I meant, what were you trying to do?”

“No, Neku. I was masquerading as a Player with you. That, just now, was me. Or rather, what you perceive as me, when I bring to bear the power a Composer is capable of holding.” Joshua sighs, trying to force patience into his voice. “Does your head hurt?”

Neku uncurls his fingers from around the pin, taking his time, and it’s still a quality that Joshua enjoys. Neku’s mind had been full of commentary, often insightful despite how biting they can often be, but he keeps those thoughts to himself, secure enough that he doesn’t feel the need to show his cards. It’s frustrating, not having instant access to Neku’s thoughts, but it’s also intriguing.

It occurs to Joshua that this handicap – the silence that blankets Neku’s mind – is just what everyone else lives with.

“No,” Neku says slowly. “I’ve had a low grade headache since I stepped in here, but that’s gone now.” He glances up, catches Joshua’s gaze. “What – exactly – does the pin do?”

“That pin helps mitigate the effects of the Composer’s vibe on another individual.” Joshua tilts his head and Neku’s hand jumps, a sudden jolt when Joshua nudges a note in his Music. “I can still manipulate your Music – only Erasure can silence that – but your mind, that should be safe enough.”

Neku is quiet for a long moment. “The way the Player pin protected me. From the Conductor’s imprinting.”

“Very good,” Joshua says. “I always knew you were an A+ student.” He gestures at the pin. “You won’t be able to hear people’s thoughts with that, however.”    

Another long pause. “Is this another Game?”

“No. It’s life. Feel free to toss the pin right away, but really, I’d hold onto it. And in a few years, if you ever feel like jacking Shibuya, well. Even I’m not entirely sure what the pin’s truly capable of.”

Neku’s Music falls into a cadence that Joshua’s only too familiar with – vaguely panicked but rhythmic, under control. “And what if another nut job picks it up and storms in here? Pi-Face can’t be the only one crazy enough to gun for your position.”

“I meant you, Neku. You have a way of calling out the strangest effects from pins.” Neku stares at him like Joshua’s speaking Greek, and Joshua can’t help the slight smile; no doubt, from Neku’s angle, it’ll look like a smirk. “The pin is tuned to you. As entertaining as it might be, I’m not so benevolent as to freely hand a weapon to the ones who want to dispose me.” Then he ducks his head, watching Neku under his eyelashes. “But I’m touched that you care.”

And there’s the Neku patented scowl. “Shut up.”

“Well then,” Joshua says brightly. “What do you want to do now that you can stay more than an hour in my presence without the crippling headaches?”

The scowl eases. Neku’s voice, when he speaks, is soft. “How much will you tell me?”

Joshua remembers the clamor of questions he read off Neku’s mind before he created the pin. “How much do you want to know?”

Neku’s eyes flick up. “I want to know as much as you’re willing to tell me.”

So he’s willing to let Joshua lead on this point. Neku is no fool; it’s going to be a hell of a balancing act, living his life in the RG while still seeking to maintain a connection to the UG and all it encompasses, without stumbling into another conflict.

“You won’t know until you ask,” Joshua says anyway, because he never, ever makes things easy.

“Because you’ll just deflect, redirect or outright refuse to answer?” Neku swipes his thumb across the surface of the pin, and then sits upright, fixing it to his collar. “Nice to know you’re that annoyingly mysterious in every form.”

He reaches for his sketchbook, where it’s fallen between the cushions, and surprisingly, leans back to sit next to Joshua, their shoulders flush against each other.

“As for what I want to do,” Neku snaps the cap off his pen, “I want to stay here and sketch for a while.”

Joshua doesn’t go still because he’s not surprised. He’s not surprised, but this is unexpected.

“Really? That’s it?”

“Sit back and enjoy the moment, Josh.”

“Your little sketchbook drawing there seems like an activity for one,” Joshua points out.

“I’m sure you can find non-murdering ways to entertain yourself,” Neku murmurs, and his voice only wobbles a little. “Besides. There’s always tomorrow.”

And Neku’s voice is even, his body relaxed as he leans over his sketchbook. He really does mean it. In between school and his parents and his newly resurrected friends and a myriad other obligations Neku will carve out time to find Joshua, or perhaps to talk at him and drive him to utter distraction until Joshua has no choice but to visit the RG so he can exact revenge in some suitably irritating and embarrassing form. 

Joshua has a much clearer view of his existence after that last Game, that his afterlife gives him Shibuya and all the wonders the city represents but also lures him towards ennui and disregard, when the entire system appears drab and routine and utterly, utterly pointless. He knows that Neku could easily become just another voice, amusing and fleeting as a passing enjoyment, the way death and the shift of power from Noise to Player to Reaper and beyond is just another note in the grand song that is life. Joshua has seen this apathy time and again, with humans, with the Reapers. He himself has just experienced it, and what is clairvoyance but the prediction of the likeliest possibilities?

It could happen with Neku. Or then again, it might not. How many times has Neku proven him wrong in this past month?

Joshua’s clairvoyance clearly doesn’t function in Neku’s presence.

"I don’t think I’ll ever understand you," Joshua says softly, and leaves all other sentiments unsaid.

"That should be my statement." Neku’s eyes stay focused on his drawing. “Guess that means both of us will never be bored.”

And Joshua should be bored, sitting there as Neku pens loops and curves onto blank paper. He would normally sense the thoughts and emotions – the inspiration – behind those movements; with Neku’s mind safely shielded from him and his Music calm and steady, Joshua can only watch as Neku begins shading, drawing shadowy figures from the seemingly abstract background of his chosen subject.

There aren’t enough Players for a Game – three consecutive weeks had put them ahead of schedule – and Joshua has spent the last seven days consolidating his power over Shibuya, composing and fine-tuning before his mandatory check in with the Higher Planes. For once, he actually has nothing urgent to attend to. This close to the Room of Reckoning, Shibuya feels once removed, ever-present but not all-consuming, and Joshua lets the city wash over him, lets the Music carry him for a change.

The black skull pin on Neku’s collar emanates a unique signal, the way Joshua can tell at once where all the Players in a Game are through their Player pins, if he didn’t care to listen for their individual Music. Carefully, he draws Shibuya closer, wraps her Music around them both, layers of sound and presence and life.

Neku glances up, his eyes wide. “Is that—”

Joshua nods, but it’s clear Neku has stopped paying attention, to him or to the pen in his hand, tipping his head back as if to better hear. 

In the UG, the Players would have heard Shibuya’s song, the basic melody that holds the Game together. The pin holds up well against the strength of a Composer’s vibe; Joshua further tempers Shibuya’s Music, lets Neku sample a little of what he hears every second of every day, the melody and everything else that comes with it, Shibuya a veritable symphony of infinite complexity.

After a few moments, Joshua dials Shibuya back from Neku’s perception – it’s far too easy to get lost in the city like this. Neku makes a faint noise of protest, but his eyes are luminous when he turns to meet Joshua’s gaze, wonderment mixed with a tenuous understanding that will likely take Neku a while to figure out.

It’s not anywhere near the explanation that Neku wants or that Joshua would ever provide, but it’s one of the most important; Shibuya in all its facets, encompassing and representing all its inhabitants, the reason why all of them – Sanae, Megumi, Joshua himself – would go to such chaotic, desperate lengths for.

“Definitely not boring,” Neku says, breaking into Joshua’s thoughts.

“No, I suppose not.” Joshua makes as if to steal Neku’s sketchbook, and Neku fends him off, rapping the pen against Joshua’s knuckles automatically. That together with Neku’s scowl, surprisingly, makes Joshua smile; there’s something to be said about casual irreverence. “Carry on, then.”

Neku rolls his eyes and turns back to his drawing. He hums quietly under his breath, an unconscious echo of Shibuya’s Music, and Joshua listens along, to the way Neku’s own Music stands out against the city’s, part of the whole but utterly unique, a shining beacon at Joshua’s side.

Joshua leans into Neku, into Shibuya, and lets himself enjoy the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been beating at the back of my mind for a long time, prompted by the disconnect between Joshua as a Player/rogue Composer and Joshua in his Composer form (from the flashback). There's a side of Joshua that we don't really get to see, and I wanted to explore that part of him – and what could have changed between that last smirking glimpse we see of him after he shot Neku and that silent figure in the Secret Ending. 
> 
> I also wrote _perfect lines_ because Joshua doesn't get a true resolution in TWEWY. Yes, Shibuya is saved, and yes, he's still the Composer, but then what? Neku gets resolution - he returns to life with his friends, he's made peace with himself and with his relationship with Joshua; basically, he has grown - and I want Joshua to have that. He also needs to own his mistakes, bad decisions and blindsidedness and all. Do I expect Joshua to apologize? Nope. But he can do better; he _should_ have done better. 
> 
> I firmly believe Joshua and Neku need to meet again for there to be any resolution for Joshua. Neku makes a choice - he wants to see Joshua. But Joshua on the rooftop is silent. For all the liberties he took with Neku's life he now does not make a single move and runs away instead, avoiding the problem. It's at this point that I realized I needed to write Neku's story too. To give Joshua resolution, I needed to understand how Neku reached his decision to trust Joshua. Hence, _revelations_ was born. 
> 
> Loneliness, I think, is their defining value. Hanekoma describes Joshua as being alone for much of his life; in death, only the Conductor (who puts the Composer on a pedestal) and the Producer (who puts Shibuya first) truly know who he is. Neku too, was alone. Had he died and entered the Game normally, I don’t doubt he would become a ruthless and very successful Reaper. The difference is Neku had partners throughout the Game, and it took many instances of friendship and kindness for Neku to rediscover his faith - in his friends, and that there can be a better future. And now, the difference for Joshua is that Neku chooses him, and in this fic, keeps choosing him. With someone there to anchor them against loneliness, there's hope for change, and there's certainly hope for happiness.


End file.
